


Shot Birds Falling Fast

by saltslimes



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gore, Viscera, magical healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 15:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17789885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltslimes/pseuds/saltslimes
Summary: In a fight gone wrong, things get a little too real.





	Shot Birds Falling Fast

**Author's Note:**

> For dontstopkiwibea !
> 
> happy valentines haha ! enjoi this fairly gen fic
> 
> title is from Sax Rohmer #1, by (who else?) the mountain goats

There’s this sound, this very specific sounds that it makes when your intestines recoil themselves back inside your body cavity, and Prompto didn’t know it up until this moment, but he knows it now. He wants to stop shaking--the tremors are bone deep, they’re so strong that he can’t even focus his vision. Gladio has hands under his armpits and he’s hauling him up.

“Okay. You’re okay. I got you,” he says. His voice is low enough to reverberate through Prompto’s newly-whole ribcage. 

“He’s shaking really bad,” Noctis says.

“It’s from blood loss. And shock, presumably,” Ignis says. Prompto wants to say something but he knows that if he opens his mouth something more like a scream is going to come out, and his throat hurts anyways, and there’s this heavy heavy feeling pressing down on his flesh. And there’s nothing to say anyways.

One moment there was blood on his legs--there’s still blood on his legs actually--Gladio lowers him into the car and he’s still wet, he’s tacky with red. Noctis takes the seat beside him. His expression is unreadable. Or Prompto is currently unable to read. He can taste something in the back of his throat, maybe like blood and maybe like bile.

“Hey, you’re with us, right?’ Noctis asked. Yes. He’s present. He’s paying attention. No one speaks after Prompto nods. Ignis starts the car, and they’re driving away. He senses the shift in proximity. He senses them leaving his blood behind in the dirt, among the ruined magitek bodies. They’re not leaving him because his guts are back inside him, and the sound they made when magic pulled them into place is still rattling around his skull.

Stopped at a light he meets Ignis’ eyes in the rearview mirror. His expression is fixed and hard. He realizes that he doesn’t know where they’re going, but he can’t voice it. His throat still hurts.

“What time is it?” he ends up saying. Gladio tells him.

“We’re going to a hotel,” Noctis adds. Prompto can’t think why. They were planning to camp, he remembers that. Noctis chews on a thumbnail for a second before pulling it out of his mouth in horror. He has blood on his hands, Prompto realizes. He has it on his too. Under his nails. Coating what remains of his shirt. Soaked into the front of his pants. It’s cold but he can only note that distantly. He feels mostly numb.

Thoughts don’t claw in until a little while later. They ride in silence, and at first it’s almost restful, although he can hear himself shaking still, and he’d rather not. But the silence starts to grate on him. He thinks about the fight unfolding and unfolding in front of him. He thinks about Noct’s shout in the last few seconds before the blade tore him open. Gladio standing over him, swearing under his breath.  _ Idiot _ . Yeah. He sure feels like one.

It’s not just the waste of curatives. He can see Ignis’ hands are tighter than usual on the wheel. Gladio is drumming his fingers on the side of the door. Noct is scrolling through his phone frantically as if he’s looking for something.

Prompto feels wrung out and empty, he feels totally hollow, but there’s this tingling behind his eyes like he wants to cry. His cheeks feel hot even though he knows he can’t be blushing. He can’t think if he’s ever been this embarrassed. He can’t think if he’s ever let anyone down this bad.

Now that the horror is wearing off. Now that he’s not thinking about what it feels like to bleed to death. He wonders if Noctis wishes he had a best friend who was less of a moron. If Ignis was wishing Prompto had never come with them. 

His hands are numb in his lap, and the blood falls away like snowflakes. And the road seems to go on forever, empty and unrelenting.

[#]

Prompto passes out basically as soon as they get him near a bed. It makes sense. He was sheet white and he’d only stopped shaking after they’d been driving almost an hour. Noctis lies down beside him, careful not to jostle the mattress (although Prompto’s dead to the world). He stays there still, unmoving for about ten minutes and then he has to get up and leave the room.

He’s still thinking about the color of Prompto’s internal organs. He’s still thinking about Prompto  _ seeing _ his own internal organs. He still has blood under his fingernails, even after scrubbing for ten minutes under the hot tap. Even after he spent the whole ride trying to pick them clean. Prompto’s a mess. They got him into fresh clothes but he was exhausted, and Ignis said it was more of a priority for him to rest than get clean. There are lines of blood on his cheeks. Still.

Noctis stands outside their hotel watching people passing by on the street and he knows, he bears the knowledge that Prompto still had his own blood on his face. Because Noctis wasn’t fast enough, because no one was watching, because Prompto didn’t train from birth to fight, because Noctis has gone through his entire life marked for death.

He doesn’t notice Gladio until he claps a hand on his shoulder.

“Shit. You scared me,” he says.

“Look alive then.” Gladio cracks his knuckles. “Stay sharp. Come on. We’re picking up food.” And Noct doesn’t have the heart or mind to argue. He just follows Gladio aimlessly through the streets. It’s not the most blood he’s ever seen. Probably. But he was able to stand so far away from that memory, to leave it at the end of some narrow hallway of thought.

Gladio doesn’t talk, which is nice. Noctis doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to say anything. He thought it was over, for a minute there. Because he doesn’t know how to keep going without Prom. 

Noct zones out while Gladio is paying, and then there’s a hand on his shoulder again.

“Come on.”

“He’s gonna be okay, right? We could get more… potions…” Noctis trails off. Gladio huffs a sigh through his nose, hands Noctis one of the bags of food.

“He doesn’t need more potions. He’s just gotta rest off the blood loss. Stay hydrated.”

Noctis scrubs his hands over his face. “Yeah.” He wanted out before. He was suffocating in the room. But now he can feel the distance between him and Prompto; he feels like he left something important behind.

Gladio just looks tired.

“You weren’t even scared. How do you do that?”

“I was scared shitless, Noct.” Gladio doesn’t stop walking and he doesn’t turn around.

“Oh.”

“Just because I wasn’t the one screaming my head off doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared. But me freaking out wasn’t gonna help him.”

“Right.” Noct had been frozen. He was still thinking about the sound of Prompto’s voice strained at its maximum. He’d never heard Prompto scream like that. He’d never heard anyone scream like that.

Gladio pauses before the door and looks at Noctis like he is squaring up—about to give him some kind of assessment.

“You ready?”

“Yeah.” He’s not. But Gladio opens the door like the unstoppable force that he is. Ignis is on the bed beside Prompto and for a moment Prompto’s still almost-blue form makes his heart stop. Ignite raises a finger to his lips for silence; Prompto is still sleeping. Not dead. Sleeping.

They eat quietly on one side of the room. At some point there’s a shifting sound from the bed, and they look over to see Prom sitting up. He has one hand loosely fisted in the sheets and he looks dazed, a little bewildered. His hair is sticking up on the wrong side, smushed down where it’s ordinarily spiked.

“Look who’s up,” Gladio says softly.

“There’s water beside you on the table,” Ignis adds. Prompto picks up the water with shaking fingers. He blinks hard while drinking. No one speaks. When he puts the empty glass down, Ignis rises to retrieve it and refill it. Prompto laughs.

“Uh, so that was pretty bad,” he says. His voice is raw and cracked. No one says anything. Noctis doesn’t know how to respond. He sees Prom’s hand tighten in the sheets, and Prompto drops his gaze to his own knees.

“Does anyone um, know why my throat hurts?”

“From screaming,” Ignis says, setting down the refilled cup beside Prompto.

“Oh, haha.” Prompto looks down again. Noctis’ own throat feels clogged and sharp, he wants to cross the room but he doesn’t know if Prompto wants to be touched, if maybe he’d prefer to be left alone. The memory of them holding him down can’t be nice, he’s almost relieved Prompto seems to have forgotten parts of it.

“That sucks, I’m sorry,” Prompto finally says. Gladio opens his mouth and then closes it. Ignis looks to Noctis and Gladio in bewilderment. “I mean, uh, yeah. Sorry. I know I freaked—freaked you guys out, sorry about that.”

Noct doesn’t know what to say and it’s Ignis who moves first, sits down on the bed. He says something to Prompto that’s too quiet to catch, and he realizes it’s because Prompto has tears welling up, he’s biting his lip in an attempt to hold them back.

Noctis doesn’t register crossing the room, he just crosses it.

“Do you think we’re angry with you?” Ignis is asking. Prompto barely moves his head enough to call it a nod.

“For what?” Noctis blurts out, louder than intended.

“For screwing up.”

“I’m not—we’re not angry at  _ you _ !” Noctis says.

“We were scared we might have lost you. Which would have been hard to weather,” Ignis says. Gladio’s up, finally, although he hangs back a little.

Prompto scrubs at his eyes with the back of his hand. There’s still blood on his face. Even now. Noctis gets off the bed and darts into the bathroom. He grabs the first towel he sees and return with one side dampened with warm water. He wants to hand it to Prompto but then he doesn’t. Instead he nudges Ignis and Ignis moves aside so he can take his place.

“You seriously thought we were mad at you? For getting hurt?” He says. Prompto blinks at him. There are tears clinging to his lashes. He looks exhausted. When Noctis reaches to press the towel to his face Prompto takes his wrist before he can get close.

“I dunno.”

“Well, we’re not. I’m not. I never would be.” And now, finally, Prompto lets go, so he can press the towel to his face and gently scrub the blood away. Prompto leans into his touch. Noctis tangles his fingers in Prompto’s messed up hair, and Prompto sighs shakily. And they have to hold it between them, that sound, that memory of the smell of Prompto’s blood so strong they could almost taste it.

But Prompto’s heart is beating a steady rhythm against his chest, and if Noct just leans in a little closer, he’ll almost hear it, and Prompto’s breath is falling on his shoulder, and it just hurts less.

**Author's Note:**

> gnine,,, thanks for beta!!!!! i injured my hand from getting too excited to work on this and I had to switch to my ipad and autocorrect hired a killer on the dark web to snipe me from my own living room so it was like, rough


End file.
